Heavy Destruction
Heavy Destruction is a warlock talent build. General build information Advantages The advantage of this build is a very high DPS and some very big critical hits. It is one of the best PvP focused builds available. Devastation, Improved Searing Pain, Ruin, and Emberstorm will mean very very big critical hits, and critical hits will be much more frequent when Devastation is working with Improved Searing Pain. Improved Immolate and Conflagrate will be your main tools for damage, and Shadowburn is your death strike when your opponents health is in the red. Intensity makes your Rain of Fire and Hellfire abilities castable without interruption, which is frequent without the talent (Hellfire is very useful in BG's when 8 or 9 enemies can be attacked at one time, and you can sacrifice your self for the greater good, and you can soulstone once dead). There are talents that should be avoided in the destruction tree, however, those being Pyroclasm, Cataclysm, and Aftermath. Everything else is up to you. The two best PvP pets also get quite a buff with this build. Many people sink 1 point into Improved Firebolt and 3/3 in Improved Imp, providing more damage in less time (and a very powerful Blood Pact to boot). Improved Lash of Pain will really add to your Succubus's DPS, and will be cast almost constantly when she isn't busy seducing her targets (and she also manages to eat her mana in a few seconds). Both these abilities will make a human opponent put priority on killing your pet instead of you, giving you time for DoT's, Shadow Bolts, and Conflag. Typically the only non-destruction talents taken are Improved Corruption, Improved Imp, Improved Life Tap, and Demonic Embrace. This build IS flaming temporal doom. Disadvantages You eat mana. Life Tap exists, but if you keep casting Hellfire, you will run dry (you can still easily outlast a mage, however). This build also focuses on fire damage, and a lot of mobs have high fire resistance, but the same can be said of any type of spell. Shadow Bolt is going to take a long time to cast, since you don't have Nightfall, but it won't be that much of a problem if you aren't used to Shadow Trance already. This build also offers nothing for defense, and some abilities buffed in this build will drastically cut down on your time spent alive (Hellfire). It also lacks in PvE when compared to other Warlock builds (Dark Pact and Soul Link builds come to mind). This build also does not offer much until you are high enough in level to get Ruin, so people tend to respec into this after Level 35 (which gives Improved Corruption in addition to Ruin) rather than sinking points into it right away. But, in the end, if you are playing on a PvP server, it won't get much better than this. Specific talent build examples One Nuke (5 affliction/5 demonology/39 destruction, 2 spare) One Nuke is all about needing only one nuke to defeat an opponent. Any warlock that expects to take on all classes with a high chance of success is going to have to use fear/charm sooner or later. All classes have counters to these spells, but it is rare for diminishing returns to be exhausted by counters alone. Soulfire is a big part of this build. Quite often for a well geared warlock the Shadow Bolt -> Immolate -> dot -> whatever -> Conflagrate -> Shadowburn combo will be enough to defeat an opponent. This is the secondary combo in the One Nuke arsenal. Substitute maxed out Soulfire for Shadow Bolt and you have a nuke that rarely leaves an opponent alive. Pyroclasm and Aftermath come together to make this nuke absolutely devastating. Sometimes nothing will proc and there won't be any crits; in this case the damage will still make things difficult for whoever is on the receiving end. With a reasonable crit chance the probability of no procs and no crits is very low (about 31% assuming a 15% chance to crit). This means that in most cases the target will, in addition to taking heavy damage: be slowed by 50% (virtual-death against rogues), and/or be stunned for 3 seconds (virtual-death against nearly everything), and/or die instantly. This form of burst damage allows the warlock to win battles against 2 opponents (or more depending on their teamwork) as one target can be killed before fear/charm wears off on the other. Destruction Must haves: Bane 5/5 Destructive Reach 2/2 Devastation 5/5 Shadowburn 1/1 Ruin 1/1 Improved Immolate 5/5 Conflagrate 1/1 Highly Recomended: Emberstorm 5/5 Aftermath 5/5 Intensity 2/2 Pyroclasm 2/2 Improved Shadow Bolt 5/5* Special mention: Improved Searing Pain 5/5 Improved Searing Pain is a much maligned talent. A warlock with this many talent points in destruction is going to have a reasonably high chance to crit. Assuming a modest 15% chance, this talent doesn't even double the crit chance of Searing Pain. This is significant because, even with Emberstorm, two Searing Pain crits will not do as much damage as a single Shadow Bolt crit -- and after Bane the former takes longer to cast! The fact of the matter is that this talent will almost never increase damage on either end of the spectrum (average <--> burst). Affliction Must have: Improved Corruption 5/5 Highly Recommended: Suppression 3/5 Improved Corruption is useful in pretty much all situations, but can be the difference between life and death against certain classes. A rogue can vanish out of Curse of Agony and make the warlock pay for an incomplete nuke. A druid can dispel Curse of Agony, run away, heal, stealth, and come back with a vengeance. Improved Corruption can be used prevent these scenarios. Suppression reduces the chances of the warlock's opponent resisting curses, and more importantly, Fear. Demonology Must have: Demonic Embrace 5/5 Every little bit of health (and mana) can help in close and/or extended battles. Professions As this is a PvP build, you should strongly consider either Herbalism + Alchemy or Mining + Engineering, since the crafting professions are next to useless in PvP. Blizzard talent calculator links * Basic combat information Typical combat #Step 1 #Step 2 #... #Step N Specific example build information Category:Warlocks